Independent-minded Washington poised to lead again

BY JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Updated 7:42 pm, Sunday, November 4, 2012

A woman dances with a hula hoop during the last day of Seattle's Hempfest, the largest pro-marijuana gathering in America. Washington is likely to defy federal law, legalize cannabis in Tuesday's election.

Photo: Sofia Jaramillo

A woman dances with a hula hoop during the last day of Seattle's...

A man carries a smoking device during the last day of Seattle's Hempfest, America's largest pro-marijuana gathering. The city voted in 2003 to make marijuana possession its lowest law enforcement priority.

Photo: Sofia Jaramillo

A man carries a smoking device during the last day of Seattle's...

Luminaries from the law and medicine announce campaign to legalize, tax marijuana sales in Washington. l to r. Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, Mark Johnson, past president of the Washington State Bar Association, Dr. Robert W. Wood and travel writer and television host Rick Seves speak at a press conference.

Photo: JOSHUA TRUJILLO

Luminaries from the law and medicine announce campaign to legalize,...

Jennifer Leard receives a hug as Catholics show support for marriage equality on Sunday, October 28th, 2012 on the sidewalk outside of Saint James Cathedral.. The Archdiocese of Seattle, headquartered at the Cathedral, is actively opposing Referendum 74. The stance has caused many Catholics to dissent.

Photo: JOSHUA TRUJILLO

Jennifer Leard receives a hug as Catholics show support for...

Lutheran Pastor Joshua Liljenstolpe participates as Catholics show support for marriage equality on Sunday, October 28th, 2012 on the sidewalk outside of Saint James Cathedral in Seattle. Major elements of the faith community in Washington support same-sex marriage.

Photo: JOSHUA TRUJILLO

Lutheran Pastor Joshua Liljenstolpe participates as Catholics show...

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee gives sendoff to President Obama at the end of a July fundraising foray here. Washington has a tradition of not infrequently voting for President and Governor of the opposite parties.

Photo: JOSHUA TRUJILLO

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee gives sendoff to...

Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy.

Our state will make national headlines, signal social trends and set in motion a federal-state conflict over drug policy, if poll predictions are accurate and Washington votes Tuesday to legalize same-sex marriage, and regulate and tax sales of marijuana to adults.

It's a tumultuous election, with trend-setting votes. Evergreen State citizens may bring back in vogue the remark by James A. Farley, Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign manager, that America consisted of "47 states and the Soviet of Washington."

Washington is a libertarian and contrarian place. We want to make our own lifestyle (and election) choices. And the state gradually rewards persistence. Just consider two ballot issues and the marquee race on Tuesday's ballot.

Cannabis: The first effort to remove criminal penalties from marijuana came back in 1973, a city initiative sponsored by an outfit called Blossom Seattle. It lost. The sponsoring group was led by veterans of Sen. George McGovern's presidential campaign and featured a mock newspaper called the "Seattle Pot Intelligencer."

Thirty years later, the Emerald City voted for Initiative 75, making marijuana possession the lowest law enforcement priority for Seattle Police. The Seattle Hempfest each summer became America's largest celebration/demonstration for removing criminal penalties for the killer weed.

Today, the campaign for Initiative 502 is being led by former U.S. attorneys, the Seattle city attorney and the former agent in charge of Seattle's FBI office. They say bluntly the "War on Drugs" has failed and backfired.

Gay rights: Seattle was one of the first cities in America to adopt an open housing law, forbidding discrimination against gays and lesbians, and in 1978 was THE first city to reject one of those Anita Bryant ballot issues repealing a gay rights law.

The state has moved step-by-step -- to the impatience of some haughty national LGBT groups -- with a gay rights law followed by domestic partnership legislation. In 2009, Washington became the first state to ratify an "everything but marriage" law by vote of its citizens.

Three years later, Washington (perhaps joined by Maryland and Maine) is poised to break the 0-for-32 record of statewide votes on marriage equality.

Governor: Washington is famously independent in its voting. It unseated a Democratic governor as Harry Truman won the state in 1948. It threw out a far-right Republican senator when Dwight Eisenhower was winning the presidency in 1952.

Republican Dan Evans defied the Lyndon Johnson landslide to beat Democratic Gov. Al Rosellini in 1964, and Democrat Booth Gardner defeated GOP Gov. John Spellman in 1984 while Ronald Reagan was sweeping to a landslide victory. Both turned out to be fine governors.

Again? Republican Rob McKenna is running neck-and-neck with Democrat Jay Inslee in the race for governor, while President Obama is expected to easily carry the state. The Washington Poll last week showed independent voters breaking for Obama in one race, McKenna in the other.

So what is it about Washington?

The state is willing to set our own directions and challenge convention, whether it's federal drug czars (even Seattle's former police chief) on marijuana policy or Catholic bishops on same-sex marriage.

Washington voted in 1970 to legalize abortion, three years ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision. A Presbyterian minister's son from Yakima, Wash., Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, defined the right of privacy into the Constitution.

Trends often start with an action from the bottom that will eventually reach to the top. At about the time Seattle adopted its anti-discrimination law, St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral decided to put out the welcome mat to gays and lesbians.

"The vestry (governing body) decided to do it: It wasn't my doing," joked retired Episcopal Bishop Cabell Tennis, who was dean of St. Mark's at the time. Episcopalians are now the most gay-friendly denomination in the country.

Similarly, a generation later, big Methodist congregations in Seattle have vocally repudiated the parent church's continued ban on gays and lesbians in the clergy. Pro-marriage equality Catholics have demonstrated at St. James Cathedral and taken out newspaper ads.

We also see clearly at times that emperors in the "other" Washington can be wearing no clothes.

Ex-national drug czars have reacted angrily to Initiative 502. The folks on the front lines of enforcement here have watched as Mexican drug cartels more north, while in the Great White North the sale and export of "B.C. Bud" out of British Columbia is dominated by Asian and biker gangs.

The conclusion: A new policy is needed. "Let's try to beat the criminal cartels who are getting wealthy and stop criminalizing adult conduct that is otherwise responsible," argues Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes.

One other factor: We're a young state and the youth vote counts here. According to The Washington Poll, 74.8 percent of voters under 30 will give thumbs-up to marijuana legalization, and 70.5 percent will vote Yes on Referendum 74 to legalize same-sex marriage.

Paul Holmes, a Yale student and son of the city attorney, offers a somewhat more pithy explanation of his generation's support for social change: "We have better (BS) detectors available, and we are fluent with them."

Expect that we'll be in the headlines Wednesday, or maybe Thursday when the New York-D.C. media catch up with news from the "other" Washington.